Harvard Heart Letter

The case for measuring fitness

Cardiorespiratory fitness may soon be considered as a vital sign on par with blood pressure and heart rate.
Three decadesí worth of solid evidence linking a sedentary lifestyle to higher risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and early death has silenced even the most ardent exercise deniers. Nonetheless, a metric quantifying a personís level of aerobic fitness has yet to make it into the set of tools commonly used to predict heart disease.

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